State of Exile

Collaboration

2012-01-01T12:02:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted here in some time. Nonetheless, I continue to read up and think on issues I've discussed in this blog. I'd hate to leave my work here as a virtual corpse, but I also am uncertain as to the efficacy of continuing in this format.

What I would like to know is if there are people out there interested in collaboration, either under the State of Exile label or another. My interest is in people with unique, even conflicting takes on Jewishness broadly defined (political, religious, racial, cultural, philosophical) and related issues (nationalism, the Middle East, traditionalism, multiculturalism, tribalism), that transcend the tired mainstream discourse.

The scope of this venture would be neither right nor left, and beholden to no dogma (including the dogma of political correctness). Drop me a line if interested.

The Pronouncements of the Exilarch

2011-09-10T19:59:00.001-04:00

Here at State of Exile, we acknowledge Naim Dangoor, British-Iraqi-Jewish real estate tycoon and self-declared Exilarch of the Babylonian Jews, to be Exilarch of all Jews. Here are some of his more noteworthy pronouncements, as made in his journal, The Scribe.

On Adam:

It is time to rehabilitate Adam and honour him not only as the father of our agricultural civilisation but also as the founder of Monotheism.

On Buddhism:

Buddhism is not a religion, but a philosophy. That and other cults, which have no contact with Jehovah, are man-made fairy tales.

On the Creation:

Modern science has confirmed the inspired knowledge of our ancestors regarding the origin of the Universe and its creation out of nothing which started with the Big Bang. Encouraged by this information, even serious Bible scholars are trying to find scientific proof in every word of the Bible which is overdoing it.

On Cyrus:

It is interesting to observe here that in 1971 Iran celebrated the 2500th anniversary, a Jubilee of Jubilees, of Cyrus’s Empire. As Israel was not going to be represented I offered to the Iranian Embassy to lead a delegation of Iraqi Jews to Persepolis to pay homage to the memory of Cyrus and his enlightened and tolerant rule. Teheran found it difficult to arrange this at short notice and we were invited instead to the reception at the Savoy Hotel which was attended by the Diplomatic Corps and other distinguished guests including members of the government, when I and twenty members of the community delivered to the Ambassador an illuminated scroll to commemorate the occasion. The Shah later expressed his appreciation and thanks.

On the Death of God:

We know now, of course, that the Universe is self-sustaining and does not need anyone to direct its movements. In fact, any outside interference would be disastrous. There is no need, therefore, for G-d to take any part in the running of his Creation. Thus, if G-d created the Universe but is no longer there, when did He pass away? Surely, G-d who created time could not have disappeared at a moment in time. G-d could only have disappeared with the Big Bang. It was the simultaneous moment of G-d's demise and the Creation of the Universe. In other words, the Universe is G-d's wonderful memorial.

On the Diaspora:

At the inauguration of the Commonwealth Jewish Council last year, Francis Pym who was Foreign Minister remarked in his speech that it was no longer true to say that the sun never sets on the British Empire. But that it is true to say that the sun never sets on the Jewish Diaspora. The Diaspora can be looked upon as Israel’s Empire. There is no need for Israel to swallow up the communities of the Diaspora one after another. In the absence of a Mashiyah, Diaspora Jews want by and large to stay put.

On the Dome of the Rock:

When the Moslems conquered Jerusalem they offered the site of the Temple to be re-built by the Jews, who refused to take it. Then the Moslem conquerors waited fifty years - the Jubilee period of the Bible, after which land reverts to the authority Of the State. It was then that the Dome of the Rock was built by King Abdul Malik; that is the re-built Temple of King Solomon, which should now be open to Moslems, Jews and Christians and to all others who acknowledge the One True God.

It is now for the Muslims to make the next move. Their leaders should declare that the Dome Of The Rock is the historic temple to the One True God, and invite the Jews and the Christians as well as all other believers to participate there in a combined act of worship.

On Eden:

Where was the Garden of Eden - Gannat Adam, in Arabic? In Aden, of course, in southern Arabia. Adam spoke a version of ancient Arabic, and is reputed to be buried in Hejaz.

On European Culture:

After Auschwitz All European Culture is Trash

On Idols:

The move by Afghanistan’s religious leaders to destroy the idols of Buddhism is to be applauded. They offend the followers of monotheism, worshippers of the one true God, Creator and Sustainer of our universe, especially Jews and Moslems.

On Man's Destiny:

Israel means "one who struggles with the momentum of nature. Islam means to submit to the momentum of nature. Our destiny is to become Gods.

On Mauritania:

If Jerusalem is expendable, then what is left to keep us there, a troublesome corner of the world for the past 3,000 years? In an overall peace deal with all the Arabs, we might be able to swap Israel for Mauritania, a more strategic and more convenient location, forty times the size of Israel and very sparsely populated, next to a friendly Morocco. Soon the Jews would make the desert bloom, and I for one will hasten to go there. Would the Palestinians have second thoughts and beg us to stay?

On the Middle East:

The tradition and personality of Abraham can be used as a basis to forge a democratic federation of the Fertile Crescent comprising Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan - all Abraham’s country in which still live a score of different nationalities. Of these only the Arabs would oppose and frustrate such a union, in order that they may achieve complete Arabisation.

The ideal capital for such a federation would be at Abu-Kemal, half-way on the Euphrates and near Mari of old in which Abraham once lived. What better name can such a capital have than that of Abraham?

On Monotheism:

I would encourage new branches in Monotheism. The movement can then expand into the unknown areas and bring the whole of mankind within the belief in the One True God. Jews started it and Jews should take it forward. Judaism was never meant to convert the world. "We saved ourselves by our endeavours and we hope to save the world by our example".

On National Autonomy

The defeats of 586 BCE and 70 BCE were the outcome of involvement in the struggle between Egypt and Babylon and between Rome and Persia. Today, Israel’s dependence on American Jewry which, in every way, is the modern counterpart of the Babylonian Diaspora could embroil the Jewish State in America’s problems.

On Racism:

Racism is terrorism. The proper way to deal with it is by counter-terrorism.

On Resurrection:

Science has now demonstrated that each individual has a specific number consisting of millions of digits. A milestone has recently been achieved, considered to be the most important of all time in discovering and tabulating the complete human genom. From this it follows that eventually a dead person may be recreated from the DNA taken from his bones. Isn't that fulfilment of G-d's promise of the future revival of the dead?

On Wheat:

The aphrodisiac quality of wild wheat promoted Adam’s eating of the Forbidden Fruit being associated with the dawn of sexual awareness.

Sephardim: The Proletariat of the Jewish Race

2011-09-04T18:20:00.008-04:00

The War Nerd makes an underappreciated point in his article about the Israelis who fired on Palestinian marching into the Golan Heights:

For every squeamish Euro descendant of socialist kibbutzim in those ranks, I’d bet there are ten Sephardim or Falasha with lots of juicy family stories about what it was like living in Muslim countries who’d be willing to empty their magazines into the crowd coming down the hill.

To wit, the Sephardim are the more right-wing, conservative sub-race of Jews. In North America there are relatively few Sephardim, so Jews get fairly stereotyped as bourgeois liberals. But in Israel, Sephardim comprise at least half the Jewish population, so the country tilts to the right. Interestingly, Benjamin Netanyahu (though himself Ashkenazi) dismissed the Israeli "tent city" protestors as "Ashkenazi leftists eating sushi and smoking nargilas." Clearly then, Ashkenazi functions in Israel as Jewish does in certain North American circles: as a signifier for effete liberalism.

The major exceptions to the Ashkenazi liberal rule are the Orthodox and the Russian Jews. The Orthodox are clearly conservative for religious reasons. (And almost all Sephardim are at least nominally Orthodox.) The Russian Jews appear to have imbibed from Russian culture a general enthusiasm for strongmen (witness the popularity of Avigdor Lieberman among Russian Jews in Israel) that translates into right-wing populism. Yet Orthodox and Russian Jews (and Jews who descend from 19th century Yiddish-speaking "Russian" Jews, like myself, don't count here) remain a minority of the North American Jewish population.

Frankly I wish there was a greater percentage of "Eastern" Jews in North America. They'd make a proletarian counterweight to the excessive bourgeois affectations of Ashkenazim. We have too many lawyers and not enough soldiers. I also want to date a Sephardi girl, because it's the closest I can get to dating out of my race while still dating within my race.

The Afro-Semitic Experience

2011-08-02T18:43:00.004-04:00

So Jews are a teensy bit African:

Reich’s team analyzed more than half a million DNA markers across the entire genomes of people from seven diverse Jewish populations — including Ashkenazim from northern Europe; Sephardim from Italy, Turkey and Greece, and Mizrahim from Syria, Iraq and Iran. They then compared the genetic data with DNA from 15 sub-Saharan African populations.

Reporting in the April issue of PLoS Genetics, the researchers found that modern day Jews can attribute about 3% to 5% of their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africans, and that the exchange of genes between Jews and sub-Saharan Africans occurred approximately 72 generations, or about 2,000 years, ago.

Surely this gives Israel the right to a small (3% to 5%) slice of Africa? The Lemba protectorate?

What is certain is that the Lemba are emphatic about being Jewish. "I love my people," a Lemba woman told Parfitt, "we came from the Israelites, we came from Sena, we crossed the sea . . . We were so beautiful with beautiful long, Jewish noses and so proud of our facial structure. We no way wanted to spoil our structure by carelessness, eating pig or marrying non-Lemba gentiles."

Looking in the mirror, I see only 3% to 5% of my body has traditionally African characteristics, topped off with a traditional Jewish characteristic.

Alternative Right Are Dicks

2011-07-12T22:33:00.008-04:00

Alternative Right reports: the Amish are apologizing for the Holocaust. The reader is expected to instinctively respond, "Jewish power knows no bounds!" Some excerpts from the comment section/echo chamber:

When Jews apologize to the Ukrainian people for the premier role of Jews in perpetrating the Holodomor, the genocidal murder of over 8,000,000 Christian souls, and later suppressing information of it, will Jews at last qualify a righteous people?

One thing is certain here - if anyone still had doubts whatever as to just how widespread and deep the Jewish guilt-tripping re. the holy "Holocaust" really runs, the fact that even the freakin' Amish feel the need to prostrate themselves in front of modern Hebrews, in Israel no less, over the affair, should pretty much remove all doubt - period!!

The best part of apologizing to the jews is that it is the apology that you have to keep on giving. Instead of them having any gratitude to the Amish the focus will forever be on what they are owed, and owed, and owed, and owed....

Classic tropes: changing the subject (but what about X other genocide?), collective guilt (why don't Jews apologize for what a bunch of Judaism-reputing communists did?), spiteful capitalization ("jews" not Jews)...

I used to read the Alternative Right site, because I share certain anti-establishment but reactionary leanings. However, I grew tired of such inchoate dickishness. My idea of conservatism is to conserve the finest features of human civilization, among them decorum and dignity (from a gentlemanly, not human rights, perspective). As such, little of mainstream conservatism appeals to me, and even less so the Jew-baiting of ressentiment-filled basement-dwellers of assorted German and Slavic descent. (Anglo-Saxons tend to know better.)

Richard Spencer's blog post argues nothing. It simply rings a bell for the Pavlovian dogs to bark. I will not waste my time with a counter-argument. I only note that anti-Semitism is a dead horse for a modern/Western mass movement to beat. A neo-nationalist right has a chance if it repudiates the reason most people look askance upon it (association with a genocidal ideology), like the Labour party in Britain repudiated its association with international socialism.

I will end with the consummate quote from the Comments section:

Pathetic idiots! Holohoax lies! If 6 million of those two-faced, treasonous, traitorous socio-parasites actually DID die like the jews say they did, then we would be CELEBRATING IT instead of DENYING IT!

That's the nub of it. Most people accept historical evidence (the Holocaust happened) and are not total dicks (think killing babies is bad, even if those babies are future Jews). They may accept many of the alternative right's other arguments, but even to be associated with people who use words like "Holohoax" and "Jew-lywood" (I'm serious, someone used it!) will drive them away, as it drove me away. Good luck in the gutter, Alternative Right.

A Swimming Jew

2011-07-03T21:49:00.003-04:00

From Salon:

About a month after I had moved to Guiyang, China, to work as an English teacher as part of the Peace Corps, one of my students, Yvette, handed me a letter during my office hours. Its title, announced in bold print along the top of the page, was "GREAT JEW." The letter summarized the status of world Jewry:

Jew in the world:

There are 14 million Jews in the world, 5 million of them are in the Israel, and 6 million in the USA. They have done so many great things for people in the world. They good at jokes, doing business and managing money so that there are a large number of Jewish tycoon in the world. . . . In the Wall Street which is the controlling financial interests of the United States, it is the world of Jews who dominate the "street." Jews deserve careful study though their history is pitiful.

Yvette also included a bullet- point list of facts she had gleaned from her textbooks and from local newspapers:

• Einstein is the greatest scientist in the world

• Every Jew has received high education for their family tradition

• Jews can begin law school in the second year in America, because they are advanced in law

• Phelps, a swimming Jew, will win many gold medals in the Beijing Olympic Games

Yvonne is dead on.

Dance Songs of the Elders of Zion, Track 1

2011-05-20T16:12:00.000-04:00

Firewater - The Drunken Jew

The Lost Cause of Alawite Zionism

2011-05-13T22:34:00.007-04:00

Very interesting article about Syria fron the New York Review of Books. Point of note, the sectarian ancestors of Syria's rulers (including Assad's father) defending Zionism!

In 1936, six Alawi notables sent a memorandum to Leon Blum, head of France’s Popular Front government, expressing their loyalty to France and their concern at negotiations leading to independence in a parliamentary system dominated by the Sunni majority. The memorandum includes the following points:

• We can sense today how the Muslim citizens of Damascus force the Jews who live among them to sign a document pledging that they will not send provisions to their ill-fated brethren in Palestine. The condition of the Jews in Palestine is the strongest and most explicit evidence of the militancy of the Islamic issue vis-à-vis those who do not belong to Islam. These good Jews contributed to the Arabs with civilization and peace, scattered gold, and established prosperity in Palestine without harming anyone or taking anything by force, yet the Muslims declare holy war against them and never hesitated in slaughtering their women and children, despite the presence of England in Palestine and France in Syria. Therefore a dark fate awaits the Jews and other minorities in case the Mandate is abolished and Muslim Syria is united with Muslim Palestine…the ultimate goal of the Muslim Arabs.

Like the Uncle Tom Mideast Christians, the Alawites ultimately abandoned the Zionist model of ethnic autonomy and threw in their lot with Arab homogeneity. After fifty years of dictatorship, they'll be lucky if they get dhimmitude status.

The Jewish-Sikh Mafia to Socially Run the Universe

2011-04-30T21:32:00.009-04:00

I was watching "Insights Into Sikhism" on television, and started wondering about the background of the host, the Caucasian Hari Nam Singh Khalsa. Turns out this white Sikh with the long flowing beard is Jewish:

Before he joined the faith, he was a nice Jewish kid from Toronto who loved music and hated to have his hair cut.

When the sixties happened, he was happy to go long-haired.

He says his interest in Sikhism began with learning about the teachings and strengthened when he heard the music played in the temples.

“It just blew my mind.”

And he was intrigued by the notion of a faith that believes in letting hair grow long.

But it was far more than the beautiful tunes and wonderful lion-like manes of hair he saw when older Sikh men took off their turbans.

For a restless young man who’d been on a spiritual quest since he was a small child, there was something about the faith that spoke to him on a deeply personal level.

“This is the religion I want” he thought.

It took years of study.

He learned to read and speak Punjabi to study the scriptures in the original language.

His name was given him by a mentor shortly before he was baptized.

As a result of his studies, Khalsa became known for discussing principles of the faith in clear, simple terms.

That led to a career as an educator about Sikhism, which led to an unexpected career as a television host.

Some people in the community suggested he should do a show, and he’s been on the air for the last nine years.

He admits to a certain discomfort at the attention, noting several times during the interview that his show is about the teachings.

“It’s not about me. It’s about us.”

When a visitor remarks on his modesty, his eyes twinkle.

“It’s Jewish guilt,” he says, grinning.

My take is that from an Eastern perspective, a Jew's dharma, by virtue of being born a Jew, is to be a Jew: just as a Brahmin's dharma is to be a Brahmin. Yet as a monotheistic, text-based, heavily bearded, non-proselytizing, relatively small ethno-religious group with a territorial dimension, Sikhism has much in common with Judaism. Thus the conversion of men like Khalsa is not so unusual. While doing research for this blog post, I found the following comment:

I hope jews and sikhs will run a maffia to socially run the universe.

Amen.

See also: Sikh-Jewish Coalition, Sikhs visit Israel Gallery

Chinese Judeophilia & The Secrets of Jewish Success

2011-04-14T15:11:00.013-04:00

The yellow peril! It is not racial, it is spiritual. It does not involve inferior values; it involves a radical strangeness, a stranger to the weight of its past, from where there does not filter any familiar voice or inflection, a lunar or Martian past.
- Emmanuel Levinas

Levinas may have been overly pessimistic. An article in the Forward affirms Chinese Judeophilia:

According to Song Lihong, deputy director of the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, a glance at the shelves of Jewish-interest books in Chinese bookstores provides a clue as to why Judaism fascinates. Popular titles include “The Talmudic Wisdom in Conducting Business,” “Talmud: The Greatest Jewish Bible for Making Money” and “Unveiling the Secrets of Jewish Success in World Economy: What’s Behind Jewish Excellence?”

While Song acknowledges that the nature of this interest may seem “ominous” to Westerners, he insists that there is nothing sinister about it. Divorced from the Christian context that bred conspiracy theories about Jews in finance and the Muslim context that perpetuated them, it is simply driven by a natural curiosity about a group that appears to play a significant role in world affairs.

In Song’s telling, the curiosity reflects “Judeophilia” rather than “Judeophobia.” As the Chinese nation has embarked on a process of economic and technological advancement, it looks upon Jews, another ancient people that seems to have excelled in this area while maintaining a distinctive identity, as a “model it can employ to modernize itself,” he explained.

Song said that Judaism is perceived by Chinese people as being part of the foundation of Western civilization. As a result, they see Judaism as synonymous with “Western,” and many take the view that to learn about the West, one should become familiar with Judaism.

Indeed, Song observed that Judaism is not just seen as Western, it is seen as the best of the West. In China, he said, many erroneously believe that John Rockefeller and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were Jewish. “Everything that is successful, smart and rich is regarded as Jewish,” he said.

Jews, by virtue of our outsized historical influence, are always going to fascinate - despite Levinas's warning of "the rise of countless masses of Asiatic and underdeveloped peoples . . . peoples and civilisations who no longer refer to our holy history, for whom Abraham, Isaac and Jacob no longer mean anything." Let's face facts, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are much less historically significant than their theologically insignificant descendants, i.e. Einstein, Rothschild, Montefiore. Such theologically insignificant descendants will always keep Jews alive in the secular mind.

Jews should be writing and promoting books like The Talmudic Wisdom in Conducting Business, Talmud: The Greatest Jewish Bible for Making Money and Unveiling the Secrets of Jewish Success in World Economy: What’s Behind Jewish Excellence? Anti-Semitism is based in large part on the belief that we are hiding our secrets to success, so let's announce them to the world. Are we not to be a light unto the nations? Herewith, the secrets of Jewish success are:

1. A strong sense of familial obligation, from Abraham down. Even Jewish atheists believe in the fifth commandment - and we honour our parents by bringing honour to their name.
2. The valuation of education as a means of social advancement (and scoring a bride). The Talmudic scholar, not the warrior, was long the source of communal pride.
3. Support from overbearing mothers with great expectations and zero tolerance for failure. (A corollary of 1. that deserves special mention.)
4. A religion that does not look down on worldly success in favour of some non-existent other world. Even the messianic era is something that must be worked towards, not patiently awaited.
5. A sense of "success is the best revenge" aimed at our historical persecutors. (Possibly originating in a vestigal "slave complex" from the Egyptian days.)
6. Higher average intelligence quotient. A result of interbreeding among a population disproportionately made up of traders and financiers who got by on their wits. (Only applicable to Ashkenazim, and average does not mean without exception.)

See also: Parsis.

Free the Jewish Man from Halakhic Gender Subservience!

2011-04-07T08:19:00.010-04:00

I resent the matrilineal definition of Judaism. Wherever I shoot my sperm, there a Jew should be. Jewish males circumcise our penises in the name of the faith - the least the faith can do is declare our penises arbiters of holiness. What do Jewish women inflict on their vaginas to make them sacred?

Also, the matrilineal definition of Judaism interferes with the emergence of the Semitic-Mongoloid super-race, as embodied by the children of tiger mother Amy Chua.

By combining their forces, Chinese mothers and Jewish fathers have the potential to save Western civilization. An article in the Forward deals briefly with the interracial trend, as exemplified in the movie The Social Network:

In a scene in the film, in which the Mark Zuckerberg character pulls his friend Eduardo Saverin out of an AEΠ (a Jewish fraternity) party to talk to him, Zuckerberg glances over at a group of Asian female Harvard students and asks what they are doing there. Saverin answers with something about how Asian girls like “us,” meaning Jewish guys. A bit later, two such students come on to Zuckerberg and Saverin and one ends up going out with the latter. . . .

[O]lder Asian-Jewish women thought that the affinity was due to a common emphasis on education and family that is shared by Jews and Asians. “Asian women don’t see nerdiness or lack of athleticism as a negative,” said one of the women. “I would have had a much harder time bringing home a big football player who wasn’t doing well in school than a scholarly Jewish guy.”

My editorial opinion: Jewish women take Jewish men for granted. It is no coincidence that the writer of a book about settling for "Mr. Good Enough" is a Jewess:

What happened to Gottlieb?

Educated and independent, she is gorgeous, vivacious, and sharply witty. She went to Stanford Medical School; she has written several books, two of which have been optioned by Hollywood. In other words, she is such a fantastic catch that she assumed she would never have to settle, that a Superhusband -- romantic, brilliant, baggage-free -- would emerge from the ether and sweep her into an eternally fulfilling marriage.

But, she says, she missed the boat -- several times -- by focusing on potential mates' flaws and expecting too much. Now 42, she has a 4-year-old son, courtesy of a sperm donor.

"We are taught as young women in this culture that compromise is a bad word," she says. "We tell each other: 'You go, girl. You get the best. You deserve the best.' It's not so much narcissism as a false cultural perception of our worth. We want the ten, because we think we're a ten. But we're missing the fact that we're not. Nobody is. Men have flaws, but we have flaws, too."

Many modern women have warped expectations of "Mr. Right," but Jewish women (of the Ashkenazi princess variety, I don't know about Sephardim) especially. They take it for granted that a Jewish man will be educated, bourgeois, well-off, respectful (to the point of subservience), intelligent and funny, with good family values. Thus they feel free to reject men for not being ambitious enough (i.e. not an aspiring lawyer or doctor), not being tall enough, not having a full enough head of hair, etc.

Asian women, it seems, do not take the preponderant qualities of Jewish men for granted. Coming from a culture that values education and family, they are more drawn to the scholarly archetype than, to quote an interviewee from an above article, "a big football player who wasn’t doing well in school." And coming from a patriarchical culture, they are more appreciative of the respect Jewish men generally have for women.

If Jewish descent was halakhically determined to be patrilineal, there would be a flood of intermarriage as Jewish men flee the narrow choices and narrow minds of Jewish women. In turn, Jewish women would be forced to adapt to a newly expanded sexual marketplace and adjust their expectations and demands. Sadly, such a change does not seem forthcoming.

Cioran, Metaphysical Jew

2011-03-30T21:29:00.004-04:00

From the Forward:

In 1965 Cioran wrote “I am metaphysically Jewish,” which he followed in 1969 with: “The only people I relate to deeply are Jews. We share the same imperfections.” His further metaphysical reflection in 1970, “The refusal of Christianity by the Jews can only be termed brilliant,” is topped by the following mordant ethical critique of European character: “The only good folks in Germany were Jews. Now that they are dead, all that remains is a kind of monstrous Belgium.”

"Metaphysical Judaism" is a nebulous category of being, overlapping with but not synonymous with "physical Judaism." If we ascribe to the Kabbalistic notion of gilgul, we could say Cioran was a Jew in a previous life. We could also say all "metaphysical Jews" were Jews in a previous life, and "physical Jews" should proselytize them.

Jacob Taubes: Secret King of the German Jews

2011-03-25T08:21:00.011-04:00

“Interiorization is not a dividing line between ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’: it signifies a crisis within Jewish eschatology itself--in Pauline Christianity as well as in the Sabbatian movement of the seventeenth century. How else,” Taubes asks, “can redemption be defined after the Messiah has failed to redeem the external world except by turning inward?”

Jacob Taubes, a man beyond petty distinctions between left and right, theism and atheism, is an enigma after my own heart:

I discussed Taubes’s attraction to one of the leaders of the radical right wing in Israel, Geula Cohen. As Taubes’s own letters to Hugo Bergman demonstrate, it is impossible to separate his libidinal interest in her from his theopolitical curiosity regarding the Zionist 'political messianism.'

I too have a hard time separating libidinal interest from theopolitical curiosity. The eschaton is a delayed orgasm, and the creative tension till that point is reached (internally or externally) is what drives the state of exile:

Apocalypse is all about the stranger in exile--exile that is a mental-psychological state, a political and an intellectual state. Looking at the history of the world from the perspective of the apocalypse is choosing the ultimate perspective of estrangement. “The theme of self-alienation is to be heard for the first time in the context of apocalypticism. Alienness or exile [die Fremde] and the topic of self-alienation permeate the whole of apocalyptic, Gnostic literature.... To be alien means: to come from elsewhere, not to be at home in this world” (p. 26). Rosenzweig and Martin Heidegger’s understanding of “homelessness” echos in these words. Following them, Taubes concluded that every “turn” must be understood with that absence at its midst: “The dramatic homecoming that follows, as ordained by the motif of salvation, is the metaphysical history of the light deprived of light, of life in the world deprived of life, of the estranged life in the estrangement of the here and now. History is the path of light into the world, through the world and out of the world” (p. 27).

We will never see the likes of these metaphysically brimming, half-charlatan half-genius German Jews again. I, lowly Ostjuden from Halb-Asien, salute thee.

Pontius al-Pilate

2011-03-24T11:48:00.001-04:00

If Jesus were alive today, the Arabs would want to drive him into the sea.

The Rebirth of the Far West

2011-03-14T12:47:00.010-04:00

Franck Salameh writes:

Arab nationalism was never the strong suit of Egyptians; at least not the Egyptians outside the gilded gates of the military and the autocrats. For the average Egyptian, Arabism remained extraneous and superficial at best, pragmatically, not ideologically driven. Until his dying day, Taha Husayn (1889-1973), considered by many the doyen of modern Arabic literature—and for some time the Arab nationalists’ and Sati’ al-Husri’s bête noire of choice—scorned the faintest notion of an “Arab Egyptian” identity. He held Egypt’s roots to be Pharaonic, not Arab; maintained Egyptian culture and mentality to be closer to the ways of modern Greeks, Italians and Frenchmen than to those of Arabs; and considered his own use of the Arabic language to be immaterial and irrelevant to his Egyptian authenticity. . . .

There were others still, besides Husayn and al-Sayyid, in Lebanon, in Syria, and Iraq; Middle Eastern intellectuals who celebrated diversity, and poured sharp criticism on the Arab nationalist ethos, on its illusions of authenticity, on its imagined particularism, on its fear of diversity, and its lack of introspection. Arab culture, claimed Syrian intellectual Adonis (b. 1930), is one “completely closed on itself,” utterly incompatible with modernity and loath to the Middle East’s richly textured multiple identities.

Lasting peace will only come to the Middle East when the drive for Arab/Islamic homogeneity is replaced by regional pluralism. This means each country embracing its historical, pre-Arab/Islamic identity where it exists: Phoenician (Lebanon), Assyrian (Iraq), Berber (North Africa), indigenous Egyptian/Copt, and so on. Abolish the Arab League and replace it with a Semitic League, to work in close cooperation with the European countries of the Mediterranean basin.

The region that gave birth to monotheism and preserved Greco-Roman learning for centuries should not rival the West; it should be an equal partner making up the West, as surely as most Middle Easterners are Caucasians. The West is the inheritor of Rome, and nearly the whole Middle East (excepting, signficiantly, inner Arabia) was an essential part of Pax Romana: home of Philo the Judean, Philip the Arab and Augustine the Berber. Scratch "Middle East." The future of the region is as the Far West, to be led by the vanguard of organic Semitic Occidentalism, the Jews.

Unhappy Jews

2011-03-01T01:48:00.006-05:00

We impute to the 'Jew' an impossible, unfathomable enjoyment, allegedly stolen from us.
- Slavoj Zizek, For They Know Not What They Do

Believers in the myth of the happy Jew, high off of life-energy stolen from Gentiles, need to read more Kafka. "There is infinite hope, but not for us."

Sabbatai Zevi, the "false" messiah, was bipolar (according to Gershom Scholem).

Otto Weininger, king of the misogynists, committed suicide (although that may have been his Germanic genes kicking in).

Nietzsche complained that Jesus "only knew the tears and the melancholy of the Hebrew."

Finally I will quote Leo Strauss's statement on the Jewish mission in history: "The Jewish people and their fate are the living witness for the absence of redemption."

The New Middle East...

2011-02-26T00:25:00.003-05:00

... should be the old Near East.

Morocco = Mauretania
Algeria/Tunisia = Numidia
Libya = Carthage
Egypt = Egypt (not "Arab Republic of Egypt")
Sudan = Cush
Somalia = Punt
Israel = Israel
Palestine = Philistia
Lebanon = Phoenicia
Turkey = Greater Armenia
Iraq = Assyria
Syria = Aram
Jordan = Nabatea
Saudi Arabia = Arabia
Iran = Persia

Light Unto the Nations

2011-02-15T02:54:00.003-05:00

Cush shall soon stretch out her hands to God.
- Psalms 68:31

From Haaretz:

JUBA, South Sudan - The kibbutz movement is dying? Don't tell Emmanuel Logoro. "I have a dream," he says, sitting in his hut near a plastic Christmas tree that he brought home from Eilat, and taking out a briefcase filled with diagrams of a kibbutz's organizational structure. "I have plans." . . .

The Logoro family loved Israel - but came back to South Sudan. "This is our home, after all," explains Emmanuel to his son Logoro, who was born at Yoseftal Medical Center in Eilat, sitting on his lap. "We are about to be an independent country and there are things for us to do here."

Like start a kibbutz? "And why not?" asks Logoro. "We have the land, the rain, the people. It will unite us and take us forward, just as the Jews of Europe came together to pray, eat, work and develop their land ... What is better than a kibbutz, I ask you?"

Am Cush Chai!

Jewish Garden City

2011-02-14T15:38:00.001-05:00

Roger Sandall writes of the sadly unrealized Jewish Garden City:

Emerson liked walking and so did Mumford. In 1916 he strode all over Manhattan —“East Side, West Side , north and south.” Biographer Donald L. Miller tells us how the New York neighborhoods he visited were observed, sketched, rated, while any that didn’t measure up got marked down for potential demolition. In New York ’s Jewish quarter “he encountered foul-smelling, clotted tenements he would later compare to those of Juvenal’s Rome .” All along the East Side, Mumford noted, “there was not a block after leaving Madison Avenue that was not dingy, grimy, dull and hopeless.”

Funny thing was, the inhabitants of these dull and hopeless blocks were enjoying a bright and hopeful existence. When he stopped to think about it, it was plain to Mumford that such a vital culture should be preserved, though to do this in accord with the latest principles he’d acquired at City College everything would have to be scrubbed and relocated first. A kind of Jewish Garden City formed in his mind—a Greek agora with a temple at one end, “an adjacent refreshment place, and many protected stalls” nearby, with “plenty of elbow room for gesticulation.”

Heavenly Jerusalem on Earth

2011-01-30T14:27:00.000-05:00

Haviva Pedaya writes on the heavenly Jerusalem in Eretz Acheret:

A heavenly city as a system that moderates attitudes toward the earthly is perhaps an idea that was chiefly developed in apocalyptic literature and later in kabbalistic literature; however, the Torah itself contains aggressive legal systems aimed at moderating attitudes toward this world as the most important thing. For instance, there is the commandment to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt. Or, for instance, there are the laws governing shmita (sabbatical of the land, when it is lain fallow for an entire year) and yovel (the Jubilee year): “For unto me the children of Israel are servants” (Leviticus 25:55) and “The land shall not be sold for ever” (Lev. 25:23).

In fact, it could even be said the heavenly Jerusalem is meant to remind all individuals that they are only temporary dwellers in this world: “I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me” (Psalms 119:19). The heavenly Jerusalem is the homeland of souls.

The perception of the divine expanses as the homeland of the soul is an idea that can be found in Philo of Alexandria and in Plotinus. For religious people with the kind of emotional-religious structure that Philo and Plotinus had there is no need for wandering or actual removal in order to experience existence in this world as exile.

We require both an earthly Jerusalem, the realm of logistics or practical politics, and a heavenly Jerusalem, the realm of the ideal or meta-politics. Herzl said, "If you will it, it is no dream." The messianic age will come when the will (settlement of the physical land) and the dream (fealty to the metaphysical land) are perfectly aligned.

On a personal level, I have supplemented my reading habits (excursions into the metaphysical) with time spent at the gym (excursions into the physical). The body is a temple, to be fortified in honour of the indwelling Divine Presence. Auto-emancipation from exile is a personal as well as communal, spiritual as well as physical ideal.

The Future of the Middle East

2011-01-29T01:51:00.002-05:00

From YNet News:

The brothers Ayoub, Muhammad and Mussa Alian are the star defensive players for the Rebels. After moving from California to the West Bank city of Ramallah about three years ago, the brothers joined the Rebels, a team of settlers which is supported by Breslov hasidim.

Typical Breslov hasidim, enlisting Arab toughs to join their football team.

Zion as Mandala

2011-01-27T18:46:00.000-05:00

Art from Tzfat Gallery of Mystical Art

Even though Jerusalem and its temple lay in ruins, they lived on in the prophet's mind, and Ezekiel saw their mystical significance. . . . [Zion] was what the people of India would call a mandala, an icon for meditation . . .
- Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation

Jews for and Against Modernity

2011-01-23T22:44:00.001-05:00

David Hume at Secular Right is worth quoting at length:

Many Jews and anti-Semites are focused on the necessary and sufficient role of the Jewish people in the modern West. In the case of Jews I believe it derives in part from the same sense of national pride which is at the root of embarrassing imitations such as Afrocentrism. But the reality is that Jews did not become part of the mainstream of Western intellectual and cultural life until after their emancipation. For most of Europe this was at some point in the 19th century, and for Jews who did not convert to Christianity it was probably later in the 19th century at that.

To put a not too fine point on it, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, and Rene Descartes were not Jews. Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume, were not Jews. John Stuart Mill was not a Jew. There were plenty of gentiles involved in the “invention” of modernity, and because of the social constraints placed upon Jews, there were very few of that people of any note before the 19th century in Western public life. The religious minority often seen to be disproportionately involved in the French Revolution were Protestants, not Jews. The exception to the Jewish abstention from early modernity would probably be Baruch Spinoza (I don’t think Moses Mendelssohn would be noteworthy were he not a Jew, while Spinoza would have been).

The enormous Jewish contribution to the 20th century intellectual world is undeniable. Jews were critically involved in the maturation and ripening of Western modernity. But they were not present at, or instrumental, in its birth. Therefore, it is ludicrous to claim that Jews “invented” Western modernity. Whether the invention of Western modernity is something to be proud of depends on your perspective, of course.

To counterpoint the Freud/Marx/Einstein/Boas foursome, great Jewish critics of modernity include Leo Strauss, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt. I would also cite Kafka as a great implicit critic of modernity. Unthinkingly pro-modern Jews rarely consider that Nazism was a quintessentially modern (bureaucratic, pseudo-scientific, utopian, populist) ideology.

Metaphysical Imitation Foreskins

2011-01-19T14:35:00.000-05:00

A scholar reports:

. . . the Hellenizing Jews who adopted the gymnasion and Greek athletic practices in Jerusalem in the runup to the Maccabean revolt, ashamed of their circumcised penises, wore imitation foreskins «in accord with the customs of the Greeks»· This practice outraged many of their fellow Jews but the Hellenizers persisted in the desire to act like Greeks and be accepted by the people who held the reigns of power.

What Jews today wear metaphysical imitation foreskins?

The Once (and Future?) Judeo-Pagan Alliance

2011-01-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

Israel's conduct toward the pagan peoples was such that they called its monarchs godly kings and trusted their generosity without hesitation.
- Elia Benamozegh, Israel and Humanity

Jewish anti-paganism is unfortunate. Before their ill-advised revolt, Judeans were treated far better under pagan Rome than they would be under any subsequent Christian or Islamic regime. Judaism and paganism share many common features absent or downplayed in other monotheisms: the intertwining of religion and ethnicity, fealty to blood ancestors (even converts adopt Abraham as their "blood" father), harvest festivals, lack of overt proselytization. Julian the Apostate, the pagan Roman emperor who attempted to overturn Christianity, even promised to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem! According to the Jewish Encyclopedia:

The recognition of Christianity as the religion of the state by Constantine the Great, uncle of Julian, about the year 312 had resulted in an increase of persecution for the Jews of the Roman empire; but Julian, immediately upon his accession to the throne, issued a proclamation extending freedom and equal rights to all sects and beliefs, Jewish, pagan, and Christian. In his passionate devotion to paganism, which he vainly sought to reestablish, Julian vehemently opposed Christianity; but for Judaism and the Jew he showed every consideration. His knowledge of Jewish affairs was extensive. In his writings he refers to the Sabbath, the Passover, the dietary laws, the laws of sacrifice, circumcision, and other Jewish practises. He is said to have established among the Jews of Palestine an order of patricians, who exercised judicial functions, and whom he entitled "primates" (called in the Talmud "aristoi").

His views upon Judaism are set forth at length in his polemic against Christianity. He regards Judaism as inferior to Hellenism, but vastly superior to Christianity. He is particularly severe upon the Jewish doctrines of monotheism and the election of Israel. He inveighs against the narratives of the Creation, the garden of Eden, the Flood, etc., with the same arguments as were employed at a much later date by Voltaire. Throughout his polemic (only extant in St. Cyril's works) he displays an accurate knowledge of the Old Testament, often quoting it with fluency. His acquaintance with the text was, however, limited entirely to the version of the Septuagint: he knew little or no Hebrew.

The most important incident in his career that is associated with Jewish history is his proposal to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. This novel suggestion was propounded by him in a letter addressed to the "Community of the Jews," at the beginning of the year 363. In this epistle Julian alludes to his abolition of the heavy taxes which had been imposed upon the Jews and to his desire to treat them amicably.

Additionally, Norman Berdichevsky points to the parallel sufferings of Jews and pagan peoples:

Like the Jews, the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians maintained a distinct and isolated cultural heritage stemming from pre-Christian times, suffered the persecution of militant Crusaders (the Teutonic Knights considered it a holy task to Christianize or exterminate them from the 12th to the 14th centuries); were victims of the intolerant designs of the Russian and German empires to assimilate "peculiar" minorities; enjoyed a late flowering national renaissance based first and foremost upon the ancestral languages, sustained a far flung Diaspora (for the Balts in Scandinavia, Canada, Australia and the United States); and strove to bring about reborn national states committed to democratic ideals but surrounded by aggressive and hostile neighbors. . . .

The tragic similarities, the shared fate of being cultural isolates and bearers of an ancient pre-Christian heritage which survived into the modem world, deserves recognition. . . .

The individuality of the three peoples and especially the revelation that the archaic Latvian and Lithuanian languages, the former Baltic pagan religion, Baltic legends and folk customs were all survivors of the ancient Indo-European or Aryan pre-historic culture reinforced the analogy of "turning the clock back thousands of years", just as Zionism had sought to do by reestablishing a Jewish state and reviving the Hebrew language.

Many modern pagans tend toward anti-Judaism because of their hatred of Christianity, as if (despite the Greek fathers) it were some Jewish plot. In response to Nietzsche's polemic, I say Judea may have conquered Rome in the sense of imparting a religious language, but at what price in Judean lives and dignity?! Instead of a Jewish plot, the persecution of flesh-and-blood ("carnal") Israelites by the self-proclaimed "true Israel" church can only be described as a joke by God! Today's anti-universalist, neo-pagans should take a page from Julian the Apostate and recognize Judaism as a natural ally and indeed, model for how a national religion can survive in a Christian/post-Christian liberal world. Zev Jabotinsky captures the quintessentially Jewish spirit of universalism-through-particularism when he writes:

Indeed, I love the small states. If I had been the creator of the world I would have long ago decreed that all of the great kingdoms be divided up into tiny independent states ... I love that kind of small town that has the audacity to think of itself as the center of the world, as the city of my birth Odessa, for example... My faith in small states has to do with this philosophy: the more capitals, the more culture. Indeed I remember Kovno, Riga and Reval [Tallin] from before the war. Their inhabitants complained about the boredom, exactly as they do today (to always be in Paris is boring like anything persistent); but a tourist who looks from the side sees the difference. Previously there was nothing to examine in those cities or ask about: today each one of them is a laboratory of creative experiments: They are creating one of the greatest of God's miracles—the nations.

Pagan cosmopolitanism is far closer to the Jewish eschatological dream than the drab uniformity of one world under Allah or Christ (or Marx or Mammon). In the Jewish messianic age, all the nations worship at Mount Zion - but they remain nations. Jews are to be a kingdom of priests, but so others may be kingdoms of builders (Rome), philosophers (Greece) or warriors (Assyria). As above, as below: every part has its function in the whole. God has many names, from YHWH to Zeus to Krishna. He tore down Babel because he desired a multiplicity of tongues to sing his praise.